From revealing the expanse of fantasy worlds to the colorful characters that populate them, fantasy is a challenging genre to get right. This only gets more difficult when it comes time to introduce enormous magical creatures, such as dragons, with the ability to fly, breathe fire, and understand and occasionally speak ancient languages.
Game of Thrones did a stellar job of introducing dragons early on in the series run, and by the time the show wrapped up in season 8, Daenerys' beloved dragons had progressed to their full power. And yet, these majestic creatures are easily overshadowed by a variety of other fantasy shows, including Dragon Ball Super.
Dragon Ball Super's Super Shenron Takes Dragons To A Galactic Level
Dragon Ball and the subsequent shows and films from that franchise come from a different world of entertainment. Adapted from the Japanese manga, Dragon Ball achieved incredible success in the East before being dubbed into English and finding an audience in the West. But as soon as it did, Dragon Ball proved why it deserved to be in the conversation.
Following Goku, an alien who hails from a warrior species known as the Saiyans, the entire series follows this character as he seeks to get stronger, connect with others, and generally just have fun. Goku is light-hearted, whimsical, and cheerful, but he also possesses power far beyond what anyone would expect.
During Dragon Ball, Goku increases his remarkable power while embarking on an adventure that will take him far beyond the world he knew before. In Dragon Ball Z, the story continues to build as Goku and all of his closest allies work together to combat evil forces that would destroy their homes. But Dragon Ball Super takes things a step further as the story grows to become a multiversal one, which is when Super Shenron enters the picture, and it's revealed that the creature spans entire galaxies.
To some degree, this is almost farcical because, in any rational sense, it wouldn't make sense for Shenron to be so immensely huge. But it does create a sense of scale and spectacle that the dragons in Game of Thrones never managed to elicit in the fanbase.
Lord Of The Rings Also Dwarfs Game Of Thrones' Dragons
Beyond the world of Dragon Ball, there are more fantastical dragon stories where, again, the size of the dragons are far greater than what is seen in GoT. For instance, in one of the most popular fantasy film series ever made, The Lord of the Rings, and specifically referring to the wider Middle-earth stories, the dragons present in those stories are too big to roost on a small spire.
Evidently, it seems as though the dragons in Game of Thrones are clearly the runts of the litter when it comes to the fantasy genre, which is not surprising, considering that the show literally describes how the dragons in the Seven Kingdoms had previously shrunk down to the size of dogs before going extinct. Yes, Daenerys' dragons are much larger, to the point that they can be ridden into war, but they still only appear to be roughly the size of a large house.
Meanwhile, ancient dragons in Middle-earth, such as Ancalagon, were described as being "as tall as a mountain." And again, dragons like Super Shenron span literal galaxies. So, if you are looking for dragons, or high fantasy concepts that create a sprawling fantasy world, Dragon Ball Super is a solid choice.
Release Date
2015 - 2018
Network
Fuji TV
Directors
Ryota Nakamura, Masanori Sato, Kenichi Takeshita, Takao Iwai, Hideki Hiroshima, Masato Mitsuka, Kazuya Karasawa, Ayumu Ono, Takahiro Imamura, Tatsuya Nagamine, Kôjiro Kawasaki, Kouji Ogawa
Writers
Ryu King, Hiroshi Yamaguchi
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Masakazu Morita
Whis (voice)
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Masako Nozawa
Son Goku/Goku Black/Son Gohan/Son Goten (voices)
English (US) ·